When it comes to our love of raspberries, our passion is second to none. And now we have the numbers to prove it.

Data gathered by the Nielsen Company — the folks best known for measuring TV audiences — shows Twin Cities berry-fanatics enjoying 132 percent more fresh raspberries per household than the national average. That makes us the raspberry-eating capital of the country. (We are home to the Hopkins Raspberry Festival, after all. It’s now in its 83rd year and coming up on July 8.)

The numbers for other berries aren’t too shabby, either. The data, released by the berry distribution company Driscoll’s, puts the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area at No. 5 in strawberry consumption, sixth for blackberries and 10th for blueberries.

When all the berries are mixed together, the Twin Cities is third in overall consumption, trailing Boston and the Hartford-New Haven area in Connecticut. Milwaukee is the only other Midwestern city to be recognized. It finished fifth on the raspberry list but was a no-show on all the others.

Driscoll’s has put together a nationwide #BerryTogether campaign that, in honor of our berry prowess, started in the Twin Cities, said Frances Dillard, the company’s director of marketing. The campaign kicked off in June with a berry picnic in Mears Park in St. Paul. Dillard said that the metro area’s top-ranked park system made it a natural choice for an event saluting the top-rated berry eaters.

Driscoll’s also is hosting a Minnesota-based #BerryTogether sweepstakes, with a top prize of a four-night stay at Madden’s on Gull Lake and a one-year supply of berries — a Twin Cities-sized supply, we hope, not one of those wimpy Milwaukee stashes.

Benjamin Wash had a long history of drug addiction and had tried to kill himself at least once before he was booked into the Riverside Regional Jail in Virginia on Nov. 28, 2017. But somehow, he was able to hang himself with a bedsheet two days after he was detained.

The four-year contract between General Motors and the United Auto Workers expired Saturday, but workers were told to report to their jobs as negotiations on a new deal continued and the prospect of a national strike loomed.

When the Census Bureau reported an increase in the number of people without health insurance in America, it sent political partisans reaching for talking points on the Obama-era health law and its travails. But the new numbers suggest that fears of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown may be a more significant factor in the slippage.